Origin of the Veddnta. 41

Philosophy begins when men, after having gazed
on the world, suddenly stare and start, and ask,

What art thou? There are minds perfectly
satisfied with things as they appear, and quite
incapable of apprehending anything except what
is visible and tangible. They would hardly know
what is meant by anything invisible or eternal,
least of all could they bring themselves to believe
that what is invisible is alone real and eternal,
while what is visible is by its very nature unreal
or phenomenal only, changeable, perishable, and
non-eternal. And yet they might have learnt
from St. Paul (2 Con iv. 18) that the things
which are seen are temporal; but the things
which are not seen, eternal. To the Brahmans
to be able to mistrust the evidence of the senses
was the very first step in philosophy, and they
had learnt from the remotest times the lesson
that all secondary, nay all primary qualities also,
are and can be subjective only. In later times
they reduced these ancient philosophical intuitions
to a system, and they reasoned them out with an
exactness which may well excite our surprise and
admiration.